Burn
by suncityblues
Summary: If you were born of fire, what choice do you have but to burn?  Yuri-centric   gen.


Title: What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Though the Fire  
>Character: Yuri Petrov + mentions of Heros ; his mother<br>Word Count: ~1000  
>Rating: a bit graphic<p>

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><p>The curtains in his office would burn at 275 degrees Fahrenheit.<br>135 degrees Celsius.

His desk would light around 100 degrees, maybe. All those expensive leather-bound law books on his shelves would burn at 450º Celsius, 842º Fahrenheit*.

And his secretary, the portly Michelle with the scar on her neck from a removed cancerous mole, would die at the lowest, around 280 degrees celsius.

The first thing to go would be the moisture in her body, leaving her skin shriveled and pulled close to the bones and fat, while the skin would burn, becoming a blackened crispy shell and finally her internal organs would liquify, her skull would actually explode, and she'd be a little pile of shit-smelling dirt after that.

And all this would happen in thirty seconds, a minute tops, with a bit of rocket fuel and an ignition source.

A mysterious blue-green flame.

Yuri's been sifting through these papers for too long, he thinks, if he's contemplating the mechanics of burning down his entire office; murdering his secretary, but the other option is going home to his giant liability of a mother and the thought alone makes him feel indescribably uncomfortable all over, like he's got a million little bugs just under his skin. A basic feeling of human aversion.

And it's no secret to the rest of the office that he pretty much lives there, locked in his big, dark office, leaving only for meetings and very rarely anything else.

There are rumors, lots of them.

The cleaning crew all know him, make jokes sometimes while they're vacuuming the carpet or emptying the bin about how if they ever need a good judge, now they know where to find one. Yuri knows one, sure, but it's not him.

And it's really no surprise that sooner or later he found himself a hobby.

So Yuri begins to keep one eye on the news and the other eye on the various cases and lawyer chicken-scratch handed to him throughout the day. There is a locked closet next to his private bathroom with a costume in it. A mask.  
>Just in case.<p>

He calls himself Lunatic because that's what he is, that's what he feels like. Like a schizophrenic sociopath who hasn't slept in days, months, years, not really ever at all. And he kills killers because that's what has to happen. Sometimes people just have to die, sometimes people are better off that way. Dead and gone and young and evil forever. And he thinks that somewhere deep down they would agree. You don't kill someone, you don't rape, or steal, if you were happy with the way things are going for you.

And those things won't get better, not if you get caught and get thrown in jail, not if you get away and go home to your life as it was before.

So why bother?

For him, too, it's only a matter of time until he gets caught, he knows. Maybe not by the Heros but perhaps by his own stupidity, he'll mess up somehow, get injured beyond repair, die, or be captured.

All things must end, after all.

He thinks this as he looks up the name and last seen location of a serial killer who was recently released because of insubstantial evidence despite the best efforts of everyone involved. He thinks this as he strips off his clothes, folds them meticulously and puts them in his briefcase, then puts the briefcase in the once locked closet next to the Lunatic outfit.

For a moment he pauses.  
>His head is a constant replay of "what would your father say, what would your father do, what would you father think, what would your father, what father, what father would do that, what."<p>

And then he puts on the suit and it allows him not to think about it. To think as Lunatic, not as Yuri. To be at peace and wholly dedicated to one simple task.

If you were born of fire, what choice do you have but to burn?

Yuri and Lunatic, they're both killers. Murders, scum of scum, the worst kind of hypocrites, but one wants to be and one just was, and that is what makes the difference.

His chest hurts when he thinks about it. So he does not think about it.

The murderer, the man who killed those young girls, strangled them to death, fucked their dead little bodies and left them in dumpsters with their It's Tuesday! underwear down around their knees is currently living with his mother. The murderer who escaped conviction because no one got a good look at him, because he thought to wear a condom, he's sautéing broccoli in a tiny apartment on the lowest level of Sternbuild. He's singing to himself as he cooks.

He doesn't have friends, people instinctively don't trust him. Just his mother, who throughout his whole trial sat as far up front as she could.

There she is, an older woman sitting by him, shouting something at the television, but Lunatic can't hear from where he's standing. He can just see her mouth get comically large, gaping open and shut and her face get red.

He wonders vaguely from the rooftop of the building across the street if any of the Heros know this man, a man they caught a few months ago, is free again. He wonders if this man had been innocent (though he's not) would he ever be able to get a job, get a family, have a life at all after appearing on Hero TV.

But really, that's all past stuff. That's Yuri stuff. And it's breaking the rules to think about Yuri here. Now.

And so he swoops down, and a burst of blue-green flame melts a perfect lunatic-sized oval into the exterior of the building. The man is horrified. The mother is horrified. They're crying and pissing themselves and trying to run all at the same time. Lunatic doesn't spare them words, doesn't feel like it tonight, doesn't even care to use his bow at all. Just his hands.

The man burns to death in less than a minute's time, the room is overtaken with the smell of burnt person, like bodily liquids somehow, the mother is throwing up, convulsing yellowish red gunk all over the floor, the broccoli is burning.

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><p>"When there's no enemy within, no enemies outside can hurt you."<br>-African Proverb

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><p>*That's true, actually.<p>

A/N:

Hah, okay so I've loved T&B for ages now, but I've had almost nothing to do with the fandom until right now. I haven't even really gotten around to reading any other fics (though I'm working on it).

This story was such a pain in the ass to write too haha, I didn't have the internet where I'm living to look up the facts I used so now I'm stealthily leeching my school's / Starbuck's internet to look up burning people alive. Cuuute.

But anyway, I hope you enjoyed it, even though I really don't expect a lot of readers, considering.

Anyway any reviews / corrections / whatever would be loved forever! :*


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